AACB is delighted to partner with the Canadian Freelance Guild (CFG) in the CFG Books Series. Our collaboration was kicked off with the delightful Lyn Hancock the author of Tabasco The Saucy Racoon. 

This interview was one heck of a ride! I will say...there has never been NOR WILL THERE EVER BE an interview quite like this one! Lyn Hancock is a wildly wonderful storyteller who has a TON of wildly wonderful stories to tell. 

IAN MCCULLOCH (1957-2019) was born in Comox, B.C. and raised in Northern Ontario. A member of the Chapleau Cree First Nation (Fox Lake), his writing was deeply influenced by family and his indigenous heritage.

He was the author of three books of poetry: The Moon of Hunger (Penumbra, 1982), The Efficiency of Killers (Penumbra, 1988) and Parables and Rain (Penumbra, 1993) and the chapbooks, A Balsam to Ease All Pains (Alburnum Press, 1998), Certain Humans and A Box of Light (both above/ground press, 2019). He was also the author of the novel Childforever (Mercury, 1996). He read twice at Toronto’s prestigious Harbourfront series. Two of his poems were included in the anthology Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century (LUMMOX Press, 2018). 

Watch our full interview. ​

Miigwech Bruce. Miigwech for watching.

I LOVE this book. 

My guest today is Joanne Jackson. Her roots run deep in Saskatchewan with her parents, herself, her children, her husband and his parents were all born and raised there.

Joanne has had three novels published. The Wheaton, A Snake in the Raspberry Patch, which won best crime novel set in Canada in 2023 and was short listed for the Saskatchewan book awards, and now Sunset Lake Resort.

Here's what Sunset Lake Resort is about:

When Ruby’s father passes away, but fails to leave her the millions some expected, Steve, her husband of 35 years, moves out. Alone, but in control of her own affairs for the first time in her life, Ruby is torn between panic and relief. When she investigates the remote beach cabin her father had left her instead of his estate, she discovers a dilapidated beach resort in a remote location, seemingly untouched since its former owner, Cecelia Johansen, died under mysterious circumstances. Despite the condition of the property and rumours it is haunted, Ruby decides to move to Sunset Lake Resort, determined to find out why her father bought it, and why he left it to her.

Watch our interview!

Published by Stonehouse Publishing.

April is national poetry month and we're celebrating all our incredibly talented Canadian poets. I feel privileged to have had four of them join me for the second annual reading to mark the occasion.

May I introduce my lovely co-host Hollay Ghadery and Courtney Bates-Hardy, Patrick Grace, and Ellen Chang-Richardson who read from their latest collections and shared the inspiration behind their poems.

I am in awe  and I LOVED hearing their stories. Enjoy!

​Hollay Ghadery lives in Ontario. Fuse, her memoir, (Guernica Editions) won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press (2023). Her short stories, Widow Fantasies, are forthcoming with Gordon Hill. Hollay is the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township.

Hollay read "The Zeignarik Effect," from Rebellion Box. 

​Courtney Bates-Hardy is the author of Anatomical Venus (Radiant Press, 2024), House of Mystery (ChiZine Publications, 2016), and a chapbook, Sea Foam (JackPine Press, 2013). Her poems have been featured in Best Canadian Poetry, Vallum, and EVENT, among others. She is queer, disabled, and one-third of a writing group called The Pain Poets. 

​Courtney read "The Lady Anatomist" from Anatomical Venus.

​Patrick Grace is an author and teacher from Vancouver, BC. He has published two chapbooks: a blurred wind swirls back for you (2023) and Dastardly (2021), and his first full-length collection, Deviant, is out now with University of Alberta Press. He moonlights as managing editor for Plenitude Magazine. Follow him on IG: @thepoetpatrick.

Patrick read "A Cone of Light," from Deviant.

Ellen Chang-Richardson is an award-winning poet of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent. The author of Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024) and six poetry chapbooks, their multi-genre writing has been published in Augur, Room and Vallum, among others. They co-founded Riverbed Reading Series and write collaboratively with the poetry collective VII.

Ellen read "courtyard acupuncture" from Blood Belies.

For more author interviews and to ​watch MORE segments with Lucy

Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith is the editor of Silence to Strength: Writings and Reflections on the Sixties Scoop which was published by Kegedonce Press and today we're going to get to know her.

Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith is a Saulteaux woman from Peguis First Nation. She is an editor, writer and journalist who graduated from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Aboriginal Studies in June 2011 and went on to receive her Master’s in Education in Social Justice in June 2017.

​Her first non-fiction story “Choosing the Path to Healing” appeared in the 2006 anthology Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces. She has written for the Native Canadian, Anishinabek News, Windspeaker, FNH Magazine, New Tribe Magazine, Muskrat Magazine and the Piker Press. She has also co-edited the anthology Bawaajigan with fellow Indigenous writer Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler. 

From the 1960s through the 1980s the Canadian Children’s Aid Society engaged in a large-scale program of taking First Nations children from their families and communities and adopting them out to non-Indigenous families. This systemic abduction of untold thousands of children came to be known as the Sixties Scoop. Stories of the intergenerational disruption from loss of family and culture are shared in this collection, as are stories of strength and survivance.
​
In Silence to Strength: Writings and Reflections on the 60s Scoop, editor Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith gathers together contributions from seventeen Sixties Scoop survivors from across the territories of Canada. These courageous writings show there is strength in telling story, and power in ending the silences of the past.

The contributors to Silence to Strength are: Anna Croxen, Vonda Knipfel, Shaun LaDue, Alice McKay, Denise Mcleod, Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith, David Mortimer, Arlene Noskye, Karen Orser, Doreen Parenteau, Shane Pement, Tyler Pennock, Cathy Phannenhour, Elizabeth Redsky, Terry Swan, Melissa Thomas (Sigvaldason), and Lisa Wilder.

Watch Christine discuss this incredible book that EVERY Canadian should read. I was very moved by these courageous survivor stories.

The stunning cover is by George Littlechild.

​Miigwetch Christine. It was an honour to speak with you. Miigwetch, thank you for watching.

Miigwetch Ernie! Miigwetch, thank you for watching. ​

 So lovely to get to know Gail Kirkpatrick, the author of Sleepers and Ties, which was published by NON (Now Or Never Publishing).

​Gail Kirkpatrick lives and writes in beautiful Victoria, BC. She has worked as a freelance writer, government policy analyst and adjudicator, and as a researcher profiling innovators and scientists.

Gail is a woman on the move, she surfs, cold water plunges, hikes. Watch her tell us all about it!

​Some wills ask the executor to make sure a favourite niece gets a particular necklace or that a pet be sent to live with a friend. Margaret’s sister has asked her to rebuild an abandoned railway line.

Can you imagine? Gail did. She discusses what inspired her debut novel Sleepers and Ties ​and how her book came together. 

Welcome! Today's AACB guest is award-winning Toronto author and co-founder of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, Susan Swan. And Susan is on a mission to uplift women and non-binary writer’s voices. 

Let's find out more, but before we do Susan shares some lovely memories about the beloved award-winning American-Canadian writer Carol Shields.

To find our more about this THRILLING new literary award that celebrates Canadian and U.S. women and non-binary writers creativity and excellence in fiction, and to check out all the fabulous authors and of course the winner Fatimah Asghar for When We Were Sisters

A HUGE congrats to Fatimah, all the finalists, to Susan and all the women who made this prestigious award happen. Yay!

​For more author interviews